Meehan Range – Belbins Road 2021

Today Bob is taking us on a walk around the Meehan Hills off Belbins Road outside of Cambridge. We've done walks in this area before and it's a popular spot for bike riders due to the number of trails in the hills. Most of today will be spent on fire trails. 

We have to go through Hobart and across the bridge to the eastern shore, which isn't too bad today. Possibility of a shower, otherwise the weather will be good for walking.

We park at the turnaround spot at the end of Belbins road, gear up and set off through the gate. We'll be traveling in a anticlockwise direction as Bob takes us on a loop.

The start

Turn right over the Barilla Rivulet and up the hill

Going up

Going down

First example of Risdon peppermint

Risdon peppermint (Eucalyptus risdonii) that is endemic to this small area of Tasmania. The trunk is quite yellow and hasn't come through in this photo.

We walk down and soon come to a gravel quarry. This area has been put to a number of uses over the years and this is one.

Gravel quarry

This land is very poor with almost no top soil but plenty of gravel and rocks.

Bob led the others around another way, but Ron and I came down a track leading down the gravel slope. This does not count as a shortcut as Ron is one of our leaders and didn't forbid me to do it!

Looking back

Walking has increased the temperature and clothing begins to be removed

We come down this interesting road

Interesting because of the well built stone wall on this side. I don't know how old it is or it's original purpose. There are other shorter roads leading to the quarry.

This gate takes us onto private property

Bob spoke to someone some time ago who said it's ok to walk here. No lock on gate.

We walk past a couple of dams

More Risdon peppermints

You can see how dry the area is.

Could be Breakneck Hill

Another, older gate

We overcome all obstacles

Back onto public land

 

This is an easy walk along the dry Cross Rivulet.

The very dry Cross Rivulet

Now, to cast our minds back to the start, Bob told us we would have a little hill to climb at some point. In the photo below he stops to remind us of that fact.

Bob has a couple of classifications he uses for his hill climbs. We're all familiar with "wee" hills. These are not too high and rarely require ropes. The one we're about to climb is called "little" which is anything between the top of a wee hill and one just below the peak of Mt. Everest. 

Bob reminding us of the 'little' hill we're going to climb

It's difficult to show gradient in a photo

Gravel rash on the tip of your nose does a better job.

Looking down

Climbers putting on a brave face

Finally we reach the top or at least a point where we can move off to our lunch spot. I did suggest a better classification of this little hill might be this little bugger of a hill.

A couple of us remember walking down this hill on a previous walk. It wasn't enjoyable then either.

Lunch with enough seating for all

More Risdon peppermints

Lunch finished, we find we're next to a bike track which is for all intents and purposes level walking and will head us back to the start.

Following a bike track

I suppose this is the name of the trail

However, when I found a list of tracks this wasn't on it. There were quite a number of others, some with rather interesting names.

Poo Tube, I can't believe it's not sweet as butter, four balls are just some of the names.

Still very open, very dry bush

Still a few large trees

A jump to liven things up

You know what it is by now

Heading left and down

I wonder if it went any faster without this useless bit?

We continue down onto a fire trail and turning left onto the Stringy Bark Gully Track.

Turning off

It was about here that a couple of cyclists came up behind us

 

 

We'll be walking down Air Force Gully part of the varied history of this area.

Back in WWII explosives and ammunition were stored in this hills. Other uses date back to colonial times when stolen livestock was moved through these gullies

There is an interesting paper online with some history of the Meehan Range and also personal accounts of life in the past, some recent. It's Tracks & Trails in the
MEEHAN RANGE A Brief History of Human Use by Peter H MacFie.

CLICK HERE to read it online.

As we walk, the fire trail that was next to us has dropped quite far down and it's time we made our way down to it.

This was deemed to be too difficult due to the condition of the track

This is much better!

When I tell you that some made it the whole way down by sliding on their bottoms, you'll know how much better it was

Looking back. We came down the left fork

Back firmly on our feet, we continue on

 We had 14 walkers and covered 11.08km in 4:13hrs.

Thanks to Bob for an interesting walk. Yes, even with the little hill. It was something different and we all managed it in the end.

Click here to download GPX file